PART 2.
“Boss… don’t touch anything.”
Marco’s voice came out lower than I had ever heard it.
I stepped closer.
“What do you see?”
He raised one hand toward me.
Stop.
My heart started pounding.
“Marco.”
Inside the wall, something blinked red.
Then a second light blinked beside it.
And from somewhere deep behind the nursery plaster came a sound so soft I almost convinced myself I imagined it.
A child crying.
Not one of mine.
—
Marco killed the nursery lights.
“Why did you do that?”
“To see what’s active.”
Darkness swallowed the room.
For half a second, nothing happened.
Then the wall came alive.
Red.
Green.
Blue.
Tiny lights glowed behind the ventilation opening like a nest of mechanical insects.
Not two devices.
Dozens.
My jaw tightened.
“Turn the lights back on.”
He did.
Then he removed another section of the wooden trim.
What we saw behind it made even Marco mutter a curse.
Wires.
Thin black cables ran vertically through the wall, branching toward every corner of the nursery.
One led upward toward the ceiling.
Another disappeared beneath the floorboards.
Three more ran toward the cribs.
Marco stared at the installation.
“This wasn’t done quickly.”
“How long?”
“Days.”
I looked at him.
He corrected himself.
“Maybe weeks.”
Every emotion I had been suppressing collapsed into one thought.
Someone had been inside my house.
Not sneaking through a window.
Not slipping past a guard for thirty seconds.
Someone had worked inside my walls.
Behind my children’s cribs.
For weeks.
“How?”
Marco said nothing.
“Answer me.”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Find out.”
He touched his earpiece.
“Lock the property.
Nobody leaves.
Nobody enters.
Cut exterior vehicle access.
I want every staff member accounted for.”
Then he stopped.
His eyes shifted toward the hallway.
“Except the children.”
I understood immediately.
“The triplets go to the west wing.”
Dr.
Gable stepped forward.
“Adrien, I’d rather take them to the hospital.”
“No.”
“This could involve exposure to—”
“If this was meant to hurt them, I don’t know who outside this house is compromised.”
“That’s paranoia.”
“That’s survival.”
Dr.
Gable stared at me.
Then Nora whimpered from the nanny’s arms.
His expression changed.
“Fine.
West wing.
But I examine them there.”
I nodded.
Elena started to follow.
“Sophie stays.”
She froze.
“No.”
Her answer came too quickly.
Every head turned.
Elena seemed to realize it too.
She pulled Sophie closer.
“I mean… sir, she’s frightened.
She shouldn’t be involved.”
I studied her.
For almost five years, Elena had never openly contradicted me.
Not once.
“Your daughter found something my security team didn’t.”
“She is four.”
“And she heard something we didn’t.”
Elena’s face lost color.
That interested me.
I looked down at Sophie.
“What did you hear under the crib?”
The little girl buried her face against her mother’s dress.
“Sophie.”
Elena shook her head.
“Mr.
Moretti, please.”
“Please what?”
“Leave her out of this.”
I stepped closer.
“Then tell me why your daughter knew my babies were afraid before anyone else did.”
Elena’s breathing changed.
Marco noticed.
So did I.
“Elena.”
She looked at me.
There was fear in her eyes.
But it wasn’t fear of me.
It was fear of what I might discover.
“Sophie hears things,” she whispered.
“What things?”
“Sounds.”
Marco frowned.
“What kind of sounds?”
Elena closed her eyes.
“The kind adults stop noticing.”
I almost laughed.
Almost.
Instead I pointed toward the wall.
“There is military-grade surveillance equipment hidden three feet from my children.
This is not the night for riddles.”
Sophie pulled away from her mother.
“It sings.”
Silence.
I crouched.
“What sings?”
“The wall.”
Marco and I looked at each other.
“What does it sing?”
Sophie’s little eyebrows pulled together.
“I don’t know the words.”
“Can you show us?”
Elena grabbed her shoulder.
“Sophie, no.”
The girl looked up at her mother.
“But Mama, it makes the babies scared.”
That was enough for me.
“Elena.”
She stared back.
“If you know something, tell me now.”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Then Marco suddenly reached into the opening.
I grabbed his wrist.
“You just told me not to touch anything.”
“I’m not touching the device.”
He pointed.
“There.”
Behind the cables was a small metal box.
Black.
No markings.
No visible transmitter.
Marco used insulated pliers to grip it.
He slowly pulled it forward.
The moment it cleared the wall, Sophie covered her ears.
“Stop!”
Marco froze.
“What?”
“It’s loud.”
None of us heard anything.
“What’s loud?”
“The crying.”
My skin prickled.
Dr.
Gable stepped back into the nursery doorway.
“What crying?”
Sophie pointed at the box.
“That baby.”
I looked at Marco.
He turned the device over.
A tiny speaker grille was built into its underside.
The neurologist came closer.
“Ultrasonic emitter?”
Marco glanced at him.
“You know these?”
“Not this model.
But certain frequencies are outside normal adult hearing ranges.
Infants and younger children may respond differently.”
Dr.
Gable’s expression darkened.
“You think someone was broadcasting sound into the nursery?”
“Possibly.”
“Enough to cause distress?”
“Absolutely.”
I stared at the device.
Someone had engineered my children’s terror.
Deliberately.
My hand tightened around the edge of the crib until my knuckles turned white.
Marco noticed.
“We need evidence.”
“I know.”
“Which means you don’t smash it.”
“I know.”
He paused.
“You’re thinking about smashing it.”
I released the crib.
“Find who installed it.”
Marco gave the device to one of his technicians, who had entered wearing gloves and carrying an equipment case.
Within minutes, the nursery became a crime scene.
Panels came off walls.
Furniture was moved.
The carpet was lifted.
And with every discovery, the knot in my chest tightened.
There were seven emitters.
Three beneath the cribs.
Two in the walls.
One above the light fixture.
One inside a stuffed rabbit that had arrived as a gift after the triplets were born.
“Who sent that?”
I asked.
The nanny swallowed.
“I don’t remember.”
“Find out.”
Marco’s technician examined the rabbit.
“No explosives.
Microphone, speaker, wireless relay.”
“A microphone?”
“Yes.”
“Meaning someone could listen?”
“Yes.”
I looked toward the hallway where my children had been carried away.
“How long?”
“We’d have to examine memory logs.”
Marco turned toward security.
“Pull every delivery record from the last year.”
Then his phone rang.
He glanced at the screen.
“Control room.”
He answered.
“What?”
His expression changed.
I knew that expression.
It meant the problem had just become worse.
“When?”
He listened.
“How many?”
Another pause.
“Lock it down.”
He hung up.
“What happened?”
Marco looked at me.
“We lost six interior cameras.”
My voice went flat.
“When?”
“Thirty seconds ago.”
Someone was still moving.
Inside the house.
I turned toward the door.
Marco stepped in front of me.
“No.”
“Move.”
“Someone wants you reacting.”
“They’re in my house.”
“That’s exactly why you don’t run blind.”
I stared at him.
He didn’t move.
Few men would have dared.
Marco had earned the right.
Barely.
“Where did the cameras go down?”
“East corridor.
Service staircase.
Lower kitchen.
Laundry hall.”
Elena made a small sound.
I turned.
Her face had changed again.
“What?”
She shook her head.
“Elena.”
“Sophie’s coat.”
“What about it?”
“It’s downstairs.”
I looked at her as though she had lost her mind.
Then Sophie whispered, “My doll’s sister too.”
The handmade doll in her arms had one blue button eye and one black one.
“What sister?”
“There are two.”
Elena shut her eyes.
Sophie continued.
“Mama made them.”
Marco looked toward Elena.
“You sew these?”
“Yes.”
Something clicked inside my head.
“Where is the other one?”
“In my locker downstairs.”
“Which locker?”
“Laundry staff room.”
The exact corridor where cameras had failed.
Marco pulled his weapon.
Three guards followed.
“Stay here.”
I drew mine.
He looked at me.
“Boss.”
“Don’t waste time.”
We moved.
The house I had built to keep danger out suddenly felt unfamiliar.
Every shadow looked deeper.
Every door seemed slightly open.
We passed the marble staircase, crossed the gallery, then descended through the staff corridor.
No alarms.
No footsteps.
Just silence.
At the entrance to the laundry wing, Marco raised his fist.
Everyone stopped.
The door stood open.
One inch.
Marco pushed it with his foot.
Inside, fluorescent lights buzzed.
Rows of uniforms hung along one wall.
Metal lockers lined the other.
Nothing moved.
Then we saw the blood.
A thin smear across the tile.
Marco followed it.
Behind a laundry cart lay one of my guards.
Alive.
Barely.
His weapon was gone.
There was a swelling behind his ear.
Marco crouched.
“Dante.”
The guard groaned.
“Who did this?”
His eyes opened.
Disoriented.
“Staff…”
“Which staff?”
“I don’t…”
He tried to sit up.
“Uniform.”
“What uniform?”
“Maintenance.”
My stomach hardened.
We had six maintenance workers scheduled that week.
All supposedly vetted.
“All maintenance personnel accounted for?”
I asked.
Marco spoke into his radio.
The answer came seconds later.
Five were.
The sixth man did not exist.
His employment file existed.
His identity documents existed.
His payroll account existed.
But the real man whose name appeared on those records had died three years ago in Ohio.
Marco looked at me.
“We have a ghost.”
“No.”
I looked at the blood trail.
“We have someone who expected us not to look closely.”
Elena’s locker was number twenty-seven.
The lock had been broken.
Inside were clothes.
Shoes.
A photograph of Sophie.
And a rectangular patch of dust where something had recently been removed.
“The doll,” Marco said.
Gone.
Then the lights died.
A gunshot exploded somewhere behind us.
One of my men shouted.
Another shot.
Muzzle flash ripped across the dark.
Marco fired twice.
I dropped behind the lockers.
Something crashed through the rear service door.
“Movement!”
We ran.
By the time we reached the exterior loading alley, the intruder was gone.
The perimeter team found a discarded maintenance jacket near the fence.
Nothing else.
No blood.
No vehicle.
No tracks useful enough to identify him.
But inside the jacket pocket was something.
A photograph.
Marco handed it to me.
My breath stopped.
The picture showed me standing beside my wife, Camille.
Taken five years ago.
Before the triplets.
Before the nursery.
Before everything changed.
Camille was laughing.
Her dark hair blew across her face.
My hand rested on the small of her back.
I remembered that day.
Lake Como.
Private property.
Only six people had been present.
Camille had died eleven months later.
And as far as I knew, no copies of this photograph existed.
I turned it over.
Four words were written on the back.
YOU TOOK THREE FROM ME.
For several seconds, I heard nothing.
Not Marco.
Not the guards.
Not the radio chatter.
Only the blood moving through my own head.
Three.
My children.
Triplets.
“You recognize the handwriting?”
Marco asked.
“No.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I recognize the message.”
He waited.
I folded the photograph.
“Someone thinks my children are payment.”
“For what?”
I didn’t answer.
Because there were too many possibilities.
Men I had ruined.
Families I had broken.
Organizations I had dismantled.
People who had disappeared after crossing me.
My past was full of graves.
Some literal.
Some financial.
Some emotional.
Marco lowered his voice.
“Adrien.”
“Not here.”
When we returned upstairs, Dr.
Gable was waiting.
“The babies are asleep.”
I stopped.
“All three?”
“Yes.”
“No crying?”
“None.”
“Any symptoms?”
“No.”
Relief should have come.
Instead it made me colder.
Because it confirmed the nursery had been the weapon.
I went to the west wing.
Theo was asleep with one fist beneath his chin.
Miles had curled sideways in the crib.
Nora hugged the edge of her blanket.
I stood there without speaking.
Eight months old.
They knew nothing about enemies.
Nothing about vengeance.
Nothing about the kind of men their father had spent years becoming.
Yet somehow my world had found them anyway.
A soft voice came from behind me.
“Mr.
Moretti?”
Sophie.
Elena stood several feet away, clearly unhappy that her daughter had followed.
I crouched beside the little girl.
“Are you scared?”
She thought about it.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Elena flinched.
I looked at her.
“Fear keeps people alive.”
Then Sophie held out her doll.
“Do you want her?”
“The doll?”
She nodded.
“She doesn’t like the crying either.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
“No.
She belongs with you.”
Sophie examined the doll.
Then looked at Nora sleeping.
“They thought the crying was a monster.”
My smile disappeared.
“What?”
“The babies.”
“What monster?”
“The sound.”
“The sound from the wall?”
She nodded.
“It says things.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“What things?”
Sophie frowned, struggling.
“It doesn’t use words like us.”
I looked toward the neurologist.
He had followed us.
“What does she mean?”
He knelt slowly.
“Sophie, do you mean the sound changes?”
She nodded.
“Like music?”
“No.”
“Like talking?”
She hesitated.
Then nodded again.
Marco entered.
“We pulled audio from one emitter.”
The neurologist stood.
“You could record it?”
“Most of it is outside standard playback range.
Tech shifted the frequency.”
“And?”
Marco looked at me.
“You need to hear this.”
We went to my study.
Only Marco, Dr.
Gable, the neurologist, Elena, Sophie, and I were present.
A technician placed a laptop on my desk.
“This is translated down into an audible range,” he explained.
“Original signal was cycling between approximately eighteen and twenty-five kilohertz, with layered components below that.”
“Play it.”
He hesitated.
“Sir—”
“Play it.”
He pressed the key.
Static filled the room.
Then a high, distorted whine.
Sophie covered her ears.
Elena hugged her.
The technician adjusted the playback.
Slowly, a pattern emerged.
Three short pulses.
Pause.
Three more.
Pause.
Then something beneath them.
A voice.
Distorted beyond recognition.
Almost buried.
The technician isolated it.
Played it again.
This time everyone heard.
A man whispering.
“Wake up.”
Static.
“Wake up.”
Pause.
“Wake up, little ones.”
Dr.
Gable went pale.
Marco’s face became stone.
Then the recording continued.
A second voice appeared.
A woman.
Faint.
Almost musical.
“Daddy is coming.”
My heart stopped.
The technician looked at me.
“There’s more.”
“Play it.”
The static returned.
Then the woman whispered again.
“Daddy is coming.”
A child cried in the background.
Not mine.
Someone else’s child.
Then the male voice said:
“Let him hear what he did.”
The recording ended.
Nobody spoke.
The technician looked sick.
I turned toward Elena.
She was crying.
Not loudly.
Tears simply rolled down her face.
“Elena.”
She wiped them immediately.
“Why are you crying?”
“I’m frightened.”
“That isn’t the reason.”
She shook her head.
“Look at me.”
She did.
And that was when I saw it.
Recognition.
“You know the woman’s voice.”
“No.”
“You do.”
“No, sir.”
I crossed the room.
Marco moved slightly, watching both of us.
“Elena.”
Her chin trembled.
“I don’t.”
Sophie tugged at her mother’s sleeve.
“Mama.”
“Not now.”
“But that lady—”
Elena grabbed Sophie.
“Stop.”
The room froze.
I looked at the child.
“What lady?”
Sophie stared at the laptop.
“The lady who sings.”
My chest tightened.
“You’ve heard her before?”
Sophie nodded.
Elena whispered, “Sophie, please.”
“Where?”
The little girl pointed at her mother.
“At our house.”
Marco’s gun was in his hand before I even saw him move.
Elena stepped backward.
“No.”
“What does that mean?”
I asked.
“No, no, she doesn’t understand.”
“Elena.”
“It isn’t what you think.”
I advanced.
“When did Sophie hear that woman?”
Elena’s breathing became shallow.
“Years ago.”
“How many?”
She didn’t answer.
Sophie did.
“In Mama’s phone.”
I stared at Elena.
“Give me your phone.”
She held still.
“Now.”
Slowly, she reached into her pocket.
Marco took it.
Locked.
He handed it to the technician.
“Break it.”
Elena suddenly lunged.
Not toward the phone.
Toward Sophie.
She grabbed her daughter and pulled her close.
“Please.”
I had never heard her sound like that.
“She is all I have.”
“No one is touching Sophie.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then make me understand.”
Elena stared at me for a long time.
Then she whispered:
“I knew your wife.”
My world shifted.
Camille.
I heard her laugh in my memory.
Saw her standing by the lake.
Felt her cold hand the last time I touched her.
“You worked for Camille?”
“No.”
“Family?”
“No.”
“Friend?”
Elena shook her head.
“She saved me.”
“From what?”
Elena looked toward the sleeping wing.
Then back at me.
“From you.”
Marco glanced at me.
I said nothing.
Elena continued.
“Not directly.
You never knew my name then.”
“Where?”
“Belgrade.”
I remembered Belgrade.
Everyone in my world remembered Belgrade.
A rival syndicate had taken two of our men.
The response had been severe.
Buildings burned.
Accounts vanished.
People disappeared.
“Elena…”
“My husband worked for Luka Petrovic.”
There it was.
A dead name.
Petrovic had been one of the few men who had ever come close to destroying me.
He had used families as shields.
Employees as weapons.
Children as leverage.
So I had destroyed his organization piece by piece.
“What was your husband’s name?”
“Mateo Varga.”
I remembered him.
Not well.
A driver.
Courier.
Low-level.
Killed during a warehouse raid.
“I didn’t order his death.”
“You ordered the raid.”
“Yes.”
“He was there.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“To the person burying him, it is.”
Her voice held no accusation.
That made it worse.
“Camille found me afterward,” Elena said.
“She paid for Sophie’s medical care when she was born.
She helped us disappear from people who thought Mateo had betrayed them.”
My thoughts raced.
“You knew Camille before you worked here.”
“Yes.”
“You lied on your application.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she asked me to.”
The room went silent.
Camille had been dead for four years.
“What exactly did my wife ask you to do?”
Elena looked at me.
“To protect your children.”
A chill moved slowly down my back.
“We didn’t have children when Camille died.”
“I know.”
Every instinct I had sharpened.
“Then explain.”
Elena’s eyes filled with tears.
“She knew you would.”
Impossible.
Camille had died before we began fertility treatments.
Before the surrogate.
Before the triplets had even been imagined.
I moved closer.
“Elena.”
“She gave me a letter.”
“Where?”
“I burned it.”
“Of course you did.”
“She told me I had to.”
“What did it say?”
Elena hesitated.
Then Sophie whispered something.
“Mama didn’t burn all of it.”
Elena went completely still.
I looked at Sophie.
“What?”
The child hugged her doll.
“She kept the picture.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Marco asked, “What picture?”
Sophie pointed at her doll.
Not at its face.
At its stomach.
Elena grabbed for it.
Marco was faster.
He gently took the doll from Sophie.
“Hey!”
“It’s okay,” he said.
“I’ll give her back.”
He inspected the stitching.
One seam had been repaired by hand.
Marco used a pocket blade to cut three threads.
Inside the doll’s fabric body, beneath the stuffing, was a folded piece of paper.
Elena began to cry.
Marco handed it to me.
My fingers felt suddenly numb.
I unfolded it.
Half a photograph.
Camille.
Standing beside a hospital bed.
Her face thinner than I remembered.
Her hair tied back.
And in her arms—
A newborn baby.
On the white border, written in Camille’s handwriting, were six words.
ADRIEN CAN NEVER KNOW ABOUT HER.
I stared at the image.
The room vanished.
There was only Camille.
And the child.
My child?
No.
Impossible.
Camille had never been pregnant.
I would have known.
Wouldn’t I?
I looked at Elena.
“Who is the baby?”
She said nothing.
“WHO IS THE BABY?”
Sophie started crying.
I immediately lowered my voice.
But the damage had been done.
Elena pulled her daughter close.
Marco stepped between us slightly.
Not threatening me.
Reminding me.
I forced my breathing to slow.
“Elena.”
She looked at me.
“Who is she?”
Her eyes moved to the photograph.
Then to Sophie.
And suddenly I understood why she had tried so desperately to keep the child away from me.
Why she knew Camille’s voice.
Why Elena had spent five years inside my home.
Why Sophie had a photograph hidden inside her doll.
No.
I looked at Sophie.
Dark hair.
Gray-green eyes.
Camille’s eyes.
I had noticed them before.
I had simply never cared enough to see them.
My voice barely worked.
“Sophie.”
Elena shook her head violently.
“Don’t.”
I looked at her.
“Is Sophie my daughter?”
Elena whispered, “No.”
Too quickly.
Too desperately.
Marco’s phone rang.
Nobody moved.
It rang again.
Finally he answered.
“Yes?”
His expression hardened.
“When?”
He listened.
Then slowly looked at Sophie.
“Understood.”
He hung up.
“What?”
Marco seemed uncertain whether to say it.
“Security finished searching the nursery devices.”
“And?”
“The transmitters weren’t activated remotely tonight.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“They were triggered locally.”
“By whom?”
Marco looked at the handmade doll in his hand.
“There’s a matching transmitter sewn inside this.”
Elena stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Marco tore the doll open further.
A small black component fell onto the desk.
Sophie screamed.
“My dolly!”
Elena covered her mouth.
“I didn’t put that there.”
Marco examined it.
“Someone did.”
The technician picked up the component.
His eyes widened.
“This isn’t a transmitter.”
“What is it?”
“A key.”
“A key to what?”
He connected it to the laptop.
The screen flickered.
Then went black.
A video opened automatically.
Camille appeared.
Alive.
Sitting in a dark room.
Older than she had been in the photograph.
Older than she was supposed to have ever become.
My knees nearly gave out.
The timestamp in the corner was dated only six months earlier.
Impossible.
Camille had been buried four years ago.
On the recording, she looked directly into the camera.
Directly at me.
Then she spoke.
“Adrien, if you’re watching this, they found Sophie.”
No one in the room breathed.
Camille leaned closer.
Her face filled the screen.
“And if they found Sophie…”
She paused.
“…they already know the woman you buried wasn’t me.”
The video cut to black.
Then every phone in the house began ringing at the same time.
Before any of us could move, a scream came through Marco’s radio.
“WEST WING BREACH!”
My blood turned to ice.
The babies.
I ran.
Behind me, Marco shouted orders.
Somewhere upstairs, glass shattered.
Then gunfire exploded through my house.
And over the speakers hidden inside every wall, Camille’s voice whispered:
“Run, Adrien.”
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
READ FULL PART 2:
FULL STORY: The Secret Behind the Crying Babies – PT04
Source: Stories of Destiny · Thao Thao
